The editor of L'Encyclopédie de L'Agora and well known newspaper chronicler and philosopher, analyses actuality through the looking glass of Belonging.
Culture
We come to a place by chance; we become of a place through the power of culture to overlay things and events with meaning and memories. Emily Carr’s paintings, for example, have the power to strengthen British Columbians’ connection to their mountains, their sky and their sea; a line of poetry can bring dead leaves to life. See that tree next to your house? You didn’t know what kind of tree it was. You didn’t notice that it kept its dead leaves all winter. Until one day you read a poem that revealed its mystery – and the tree came alive for you. Just so, poetry may reveal to us “all the lonely people” made invisible by our indifference. And see what joy abounds when they too are touched by poetry…
Illustration by Harold Lejeune (L'Arche Beloeil), for a benefit concert by
Angèle Dubeau's orchestra, La Pièta.
The cities of Medellin, Colombia, and Kampala, Uganda, may serve as useful models for Haiti. In Medellin, the homicide rate was reduced by 90% when "the most beautiful" was offered "to the most humble." In Kampala, the lives of the poor have been improved thanks to urban agriculture. In each case, it is clear that the most effective foreign aid is that which rewards successful,...
With Soil Not Oil, Vandana Shiva brilliantly reveals what connects humanity’s most urgent crises – food insecurity, peak oil, and climate change – and why any attempt to solve one without addressing the others will get us nowhere. [...] A new battle in what looks more and more like a cold war between the well organised industrial agriculture, under the leadership of Monsanto...
Le hêtre qui revit
«Je suis le fils déchu d'une race surhumaine. [...]
Par nos ans sans vigueur, je suis comme le hêtre
dont la sève a tari sans qu'il soit dépouillé,
Et c'est de désirs morts que je suis enfeuillé,
Quand je rêve d'aller comme allait mon ancêtre».
Alfred Desrochers
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The editor of L'Encyclopédie de L'Agora and well known newspaper chronicler and philosopher, analyses actuality through the looking glass of Belonging.Latest posts
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Loneliness affects one in ten people in France
ONE in ten people in France lives in solitude and a quarter have only the most basic links to family or friends, a new report has revealed. The issue of solitude came up in 2003 after the...
Preventing Home Foreclosures - a Promising Innovation in Philadelphia
